The Democrats in office do not appear to have a good grasp on strength. They have failed us. Sometimes a compromise really is failure. We’ve become the Pussy Party. And it is driving us to have it neither way at once:

Welcome to the learned helplessness of the Democratic Party. They’ve been spanked on national security for so long that they literally cannot conceive of pulling out a win merely because their position commands overwhelming public support. At best, the reprisal will be delayed a few years, until the Right convinces a fickle populace that the Reid-led withdrawal lost the war for us.

The Dems will be attacked on national security and the war no matter what, and still managed to avoid actually taking a stand. They’ve lost whatever semblance of practicality and principle they were striving to balance.

As royally pissed as I am, and I am pissed, Kos has outstanding words for us all: Keep Fighting:

Unless you care more about George W.’s ego than the safety and welfare of our troops, you are pissed right now. But there is productive pissed, and destructive pissed. The productive stuff has us redoubling our efforts to clean house in Congress, clearing out the dead weight, the corporatists, and the Republicans. There’s the taking over our local parties, bringing new blood and a cohesive sense of purpose to often moribund organizations.

And there’s nothing that the DLC/Third War wing of the party would love more, than to see use take our ball and go home.

We won’t. We are getting back on our feet and getting ready for a group body check. We have the opinion of the American people at our back, and we will not stop until we bring our troops home safely and end this war.

We know strength, and we will win.

UPDATE: Contact info for the Democratic leadership from Liberally Mirth.

4 Responses

Thanks for including LM’s Dem contact link.
This is an exceptionally informative post and its organization comes just as we are feeling disarrayed. I’m very appreciative of your efforts. I honestly don’t know my next step at this point. To continue giving my work and my $ to a party that does not represent me…nuh uh. To not continue the work and costs of electing a presidential team that can lead us out of this nightmare…nuh uh. The only thing I am certain of is we need to give equal energy to voting out Dem members of Congress that we give to voting in a Dem prez & vp. While Gore comes from the DLC crowd that has brought the party to this low point, he is the only hope I see. And that in itself is pathetic.

It was a giant disappointment to see the Democracts cave this week. Ever since the authorization for this debacle in Iraq they have been politically calculating against looking unpatriotic and have miscalculated each time. They keep telling us that if they merely had more votes then the war would end. We know that they don’t have to vote at all for funding. They are merely too afraid of political consequences to stop the funding all together.

I agree with mirth in saying that we keep up the political pressure on those who should be our allies. I am always reminding myself that the Democrats had to have politcal pressure to enact the Civil Rights Bill. They were afraid of it being too politically damaging. Once one tastes power there is a reluctance internally to shake the boat to relinquish that same power.

This was a very emotionally draining hit, and putting new
and fierce pressure on our party is a very welcome pick me up.
Especially in primary battles.

We have to find a way to rip this fear out of the Democratic
party, but honestly, I feel quite like Mirth at all of it.
What next? The only thing I can think of right now is how
I’d love to sit down with some of these leaders face to face
and call them on their cowardice.